Review: The Woman in Black – Susan Hill
"Set on the obligatory English moor, on an isolated causeway, the story has as its hero Arthur Kipps, an up-and-coming young solicitor who has come north from London to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. The routine formalities he anticipates give way to a tumble of events and secrets more sinister and terrifying than any nightmare: the rocking chair in the deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child's scream in the fog, and most dreadfully--and for Kipps most tragically--The Woman In Black.
The Woman In Black is both a brilliant exercise in atmosphere and controlled horror and a delicious spine-tingler--proof positive that this neglected genre, the ghost story, isn't dead after all." Goodreads
Before I even start, I’m going compare the book to the play and film
adaptation of this book, purely because I saw those before I read the book.
This book took me a while to finish despite only having 216 pages—mainly due to
assignments, but I also found the lengthy chapters exhausting to read. It made
it me not want to pick up the book. Nevertheless, I did enjoy it and finished
it eventually!
***SPOILERY***
Moving onto the content of the book; I just love the story. I think it is
fantastic especially that still today in 2014, we’re still interested and
excited by ghost stories which were being told hundreds of years ago. For me
personally, the play is my favourite. I saw this first four years ago and have
seen it several times since as it is genius, whereas the film was over dramatized
and very…Hollywood. From reading the
book, I could tell that certain scenes such as Mr Daily and his wife losing her
mind over the loss of their child was put in. It is, however, hinted at in the
book, but not expanded upon. As a disclaimer, I don’t like Daniel Radcliffe,
but that’s another matter.
Having seen the film, I did notice that a lot of scenes from the book
were described and executed perfectly as I really knew exactly what was going
on. The one image that sticks out in my mind is when Arthur Kipps sees the
Woman in Black in the graveyard with a waste face. That stood out for me as I had
the imagery from the description supplied by Hill, but also the visual of the
film.
Switching back to the play, the scene that stood out for me in regards to
the book would have to be the funeral of Alice Drablow whereby the Woman in
Black is stood behind Arthur Kipps and Mr Jerome. This was cleverly represented
in the play, using the given directions from Hill.
I’ll try not to hang around on the comparisons as I’m still in
assignment mode, however I felt like I needed to comment. Back to the book
itself, it has extremely long chapters. Not only this, but extremely long sentences.
Maybe I have no right complaining about this as I used to do it myself, trying
to fit every minor detail into one sentence, but sometimes you need to come up
for air and breathe! Hill continues on for ever! It is arduous. I have learned
from my mistakes so I can see where I was going wrong, but that definitely put
me off. After seeing both the play and film—and being told that the book was
more like the play than the film—it wouldn’t make much of a difference to the overall
story if the first chapter on Christmas Eve wasn’t included as it doesn’t do
much for the reader. The story only really gets going on the second chapter
whereby he is told to travel to Crythin Gifford and organise the papers of
Alice Drablow.
I probably would read this book again, however, it isn’t my favourite
and I certainly won’t be reaching for this anytime soon. I will be going to see the play again, however!
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